I was on the Midway on the night of July 29, 1980 when it was t-boned on the port side by a Panamanian freighter in the Strait of Malacca. It was almost catastrophic when the rigging of the freighter tore the tails off of several Phantoms, one of which had both engines turning. The bow crushed the LOX plant and killed two sailors there. Hundreds of gallons of fuel spilled all over the flight deck and running down the side of the ship by the LOX plant and on a couple of missiles that were loaded.
If I remember correctly, the captain of the of the freighter (the Cactus) misinterpreted the Midway's running lights and made a right turn into us from about 10:00 to 11:00. We went to abandon ship stations a while later. Search Midway/cactus collision at sea.
Hard to dodge something in a ship that big.
